Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By : David Ringstrom
Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By: David Ringstrom

Overview of this book

David Ringstrom coined the phrase “Either you work Excel, or it works you!” after observing how many users carry out tasks inefficiently. In this book, you’ll learn how to get more done with less effort. This book will enable you to create resilient spreadsheets that are easy for others to use as well, while incorporating spreadsheet disaster preparedness techniques. The time-saving techniques covered in the book include creating custom shortcuts and icons to streamline repetitive tasks, as well as automating them with features such as Tables and Custom Views. You’ll see how Conditional Formatting enables you to apply colors, Cell icons, and other formatting on-demand as your data changes. You’ll be empowered to protect the integrity of spreadsheets and increase usability by implementing internal controls, and understand how to solve problems with What-If Analysis features. In addition, you’ll master new features and functions such as XLOOKUP, Dynamic Array functions, LET and LAMBDA, and Power Query, while learning how to leverage shortcuts and nuances in Excel. By the end of this book, you’ll have a broader awareness of how to avoid pitfalls in Excel. You’ll be empowered to work more effectively in Excel, having gained a deeper understanding of the frustrating oddities that can arise daily in Excel.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Improving Accessibility
6
Part 2:Spreadsheet Interactivity and Automation
12
Part 3: Data Analysis

Introducing the LAMBDA function

Before the advent of LAMBDA, creating custom worksheet functions in Excel required writing programming code, such as with Visual Basic for Applications in Excel or by using other languages to create add-ins for Excel. You'll be relieved, and perhaps even amazed, to know that, you don’t need any programming experience to use LAMBDA. The ability to write formulas in Excel and an understanding of defining Names are all that you need to create custom worksheet functions with LAMBDA.

Tip

JavaScript-based worksheet functions can be created in Microsoft 365, Excel 2021, and Excel for Web.

LAMBDA functions can get wildly complex as you can create recursive formulas where a LAMBDA function refers to itself more than once, akin to a circular reference, as discussed in Chapter 9, Excel Quirks and Nuances. I do not have space to dive deep into LAMBDA, which means I won’t create any recursive formulas, but I can give you a running start...